


little stars are herring fish

by tomato_greens



Series: something incredible waiting to be known [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Child Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-27
Updated: 2011-05-27
Packaged: 2017-10-19 19:53:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomato_greens/pseuds/tomato_greens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Well, this is awfully welcoming," she sniffs. "I've lost a child too, you know. The least you could do is not make me lug this heavy thing all around."</p>
            </blockquote>





	little stars are herring fish

**Author's Note:**

> Subtle, this is not. WARNING: Consequences of infant death due to SIDS, interfering family members.

Arthur's sister shows up two weeks later, dressed in black.

Arthur opens up the door at her knock. "No," he says dumbly.

"What are you talking about?" she asks, nudging him aside and dragging her dilapidated suitcase in.

He stares at the new, disconcertingly shiny scratches in his threshold. "No," he says again.

"Arthur, what are you––" Eames says, popping his head into the front room. "––Oh. Hi, Rebecca."

"Hi," she says. "I couldn't come here for the funeral and Josh is off with his buddies this weekend, so I'm coming here now."

Arthur closes the door and stares at the back of it. He can see Eames frozen where he stands, a fork in one hand, his mouth caught open.

"Well, this is awfully welcoming," she sniffs. "I've lost a child too, you know. The least you could do is not make me lug this heavy thing all around."

Arthur shakes himself back into action, grasping one of her hands for a long moment before taking her suitcase upstairs to Lila's––to the guest room.

-

Arthur ends up putting the kettle on in sheer self-defense, even though, clichés aside, it's usually Eames's territory. Rebecca doesn't like how it rattles so she tends to stay out of the kitchen when it's on its way to a good boil, which means he can watch it strain in peace.

But too soon it's whistling and done, and as he pours the hot water into the old tin teapot, Rebecca marches in. "Why would you do that?" she asks him. She's crying. Her mascara has left deep black slices down her cheeks.

"Do what?" he asks–– _shit_ , his finger. He runs it under cold water while she sobs about the crib they'd put in the spare room after it was all over.

"I can't––I can't believe you would be so c-cruel as to put me in the same room she d-d-died in," she wails, clutching at her face with a Kleenex.

"That's not the––it's not––I'm sorry," Arthur says, because it has always been easier to apologize than to explain when it comes to his sister.

"Well, I just think you should have thought about that kind of thing," Rebecca says, scrubbing at her face. "I know you're g-going through a tough time right now, but you can't just put yourself above the rest of us like you usually do, Arthur."

"I'm sorry," Arthur says again, pressing a hot cup of tea into her hands and pushing her towards the other room. "I am. Please calm down. I'll move the crib back."

"Thank you, thank you, you don't have to do that," Rebecca says, and starts crying into her tea.

Eames is in the bedroom when Arthur pulls the crib back in. He stares at it for a good thirty seconds before he says, "I'll kill her."

"No you won't," Arthur corrects him. He sinks down onto the bed, staring at the crib––in the opposite corner from where it used to be, but still too close for comfort. "She doesn't want it in there with her. It makes her upset. The least I can do––"

"Arthur, you have been doing the least you can do for years with her," Eames says, sitting down next to him, stroking the nape of his neck. "It's not going to make any difference."

Arthur shrugs Eames off. "Well, I don't know what else to do," he says. "So it stays here for now. I made tea. You can come down when you're ready. I don't want to rush your grooming process or anything."

He hears the sigh as he closes the door tightly behind him, but he can't bring himself to feel too bad. Rebecca's got the corner on that one already, like she always has.

-

"So," Eames says over dinner that night. Arthur set the table for the first time––since. Like every first, it aches all over, bittersweet.

Rebecca picks at her stir fry and grimaces. "What?" she says.

Eames clears his throat; Arthur can feel his eyes, but he can't bring himself to look back. "What were you planning on doing while you're here for the weekend?" he asks.

Rebecca rolls her eyes and gestures to herself. "Grieving," she says, like it's self-evident––which, Arthur supposes, given her clothing and all, it sort of is. "Family supports each other in times of need."

Arthur nods––their mother used to say that, too, in exactly the same tone of voice. "Yeah," he says. "That's true."

Eames swallows audibly and says, "Okay." There's silence for a few long moments, the clink of cutlery, before he tries, "How exactly are you planning on doing that?"

"Well, I don't know, Eames, first I was going to try crying and then if that didn't work, I was going to practice some ritual violence, specifically on your nosy face," Rebecca snaps. "What kind of question is that?"

"Sorry," Eames says.

"You better be," Rebecca says, and tugs a snow pea off her fork with more vigor than is a snow pea usually requires.

"Excuse me," Arthur hears himself say faintly. The next thing he knows he's vomiting stir fry all over the toilet seat and Eames is rubbing in between his shoulder blades, murmuring, while Rebecca shrieks in the background.

"What's she saying?" Arthur asks once he stops heaving.

"Haven't been listening," Eames admits. "Something about––"

"Jesus," Arthur groans. "I don't want to know."

"I can hear you, you know!" Rebecca yells. "I don't appreciate being excluded like this!"

"How much longer?" Arthur hisses.

Eames shakes his head. "I don't know, love, you'll have to ask your stomach that."

Arthur laughs. It sounds pained. "Not what I meant," he rasps.

Rebecca starts knocking.

-

Eames puts an arm around Arthur. "If you start getting sick, you should let me know so I can let you up," he whispers.

"I'll do my best," Arthur says, and turns over to tuck his chin into Eames's shoulder. It's not that comfortable––it's hot, and Arthur's pointy edges, which have gotten noticeably worse in the past couple weeks, are getting in the way––but it's comforting.

"That's all I ask," Eames says, and settles in.

-

"I want to see where she's buried," Rebecca says. She's eating cereal while Arthur drinks coffee. Eames has run away, for which Arthur has already forgiven him.

"What?" Arthur says.

"I want to see where she's buried," Rebecca insists.

"Rebecca," Arthur says.

"What? That's a reasonable request," she says.

"Yes, sure, but Rebecca––I told you," Arthur says. "Lila was cremated. We have her ashes here."

"Oh," Rebecca says.

"Yeah."

"That's––why would you do that?"

Arthur stares at his mug. "I don't know what to say," he says.

Rebecca shrugs and plays with her spoon. "It just seems kind of morbid."

"Look," Arthur says, "I––we move around a lot. It would be awful to not be close to her because she's rotting in the ground somewhere."

Rebecca winces. "Do you have to be so––"

"So _what_ , Rebecca?" Arthur asks, more harshly than he means to.

"So blunt," Rebecca says. "I'm not used to it yet."

"Rebecca," Arthur says.

"What?"

"I––no. Never mind. You're right."

Rebecca eats another spoonful of Cheerios.

-

Eames comes in half an hour later, sweating through his T-shirt.

"Darling," he calls, stripping off his shirt. "And you too, Arthur."

"Haha," Arthur says, and kisses him, slaps him on the shoulder. "Go shower, you're disgusting."

Eames smiles and snaps him with the shirt. "Yes, dear."

Rebecca peeks out from around the doorway. "It's good you have him," she says.

Arthur looks at the stairs. "Yeah," he says, "yeah, it is."

-

"I can't do this much longer," Arthur says. Rebecca is downstairs, watching TV. He feels hunted in his own house.

Eames huffs a laugh. "The weekend's nearly over," he points out. "Josh is almost done with his homoerotic post-military social tea hour, she's almost gone."

"It's hard because she's––well, I mean. She's my sister, you know? There's nothing you can do about sisterhood. She's there for life."

Eames nods and, Arthur notices, carefully doesn't mention how good Arthur is at disappearing.

"Sometimes it's hard to remember there's more to her than she makes herself out to be," he says.

"What, she's not a shrill controlling guilt-tripping harpy?" Eames asks.

Arthur snorts. "All that and more," he says.

-

It doesn't ever actually come to a head, which Arthur isn't expecting: they're all three of them spoiling for a fight and the air turns rancid whenever they talk for more than thirty seconds. But she has to leave to pick up Josh, and as she does, she hugs Arthur and cries in a way that seems almost genuine.

"I'll miss you," she says, soppily, and hugs Eames, too. "Thank you for everything."

They wave her off. Arthur covers his face.

Eames kisses his forehead. "We'll be fine."

"And she'll be back," Arthur reminds him.

"Not tonight," Eames says, and shuts the front door.


End file.
